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Context: Existing studies have explored the association between workplace training and wages suggesting that training participation may have a positive association with wages. However, we still know very little about whether this association varies between men and women. Through its potential positive association with wages, training may balance wage differences between men and women. In addition, the gender wage gap varies across the wage distribution. Differences in the association between training participation and wages for men and women across the earnings spectrum may offer an explanation as to why the discrepancy in female/male earnings is larger at some point of the wage distribution compared to others. Approach: Using data from the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and unconditional quantile regression, this paper examines whether the association between workplace training and wages differs between men and women at different points of the wage distribution across 14 European countries. To partly control for endogeneity in training participation, detailed measures of cognitive skills have been included in the models. Findings: Findings show gender differences in the association between training and wages across the wage distribution. In most countries, results indicate larger training coefficients for women than men at the lower end of the wage spectrum whereas they are larger for men at the top. This pattern holds across most countries with the only exception of Liberal ones, where women benefit less than men across the entire wage spectrum. Conclusions: The findings of this work reveal that distributional variations in returns to workplace training follow a similar pattern across industrialized countries, despite their different institutional settings. Moreover, differences in training coefficients of men and women at different parts of the wage distribution suggest that training could reduce gender wage differences among low earners and potentially widen the gap in wages among individuals at the top of the wage distribution.

Academic careers are social processes which involve many members of large populations over long periods of time. This paper outlines a discursive perspective which looks into how academics are categorized in academic systems. From a discursive view, academic careers are organized by categories which can define who academics are (subjectivation) and what they are worth (valuation). The question of this paper is what institutional categorizations such as status and salaries can tell us about academic subject positions and their valuation. By comparing formal status systems and salary scales in France with those in the U.S., Great Britain and Germany, this paper reveals the constraints of institutional categorization systems on academic careers. Special attention is given to the French system of status categories which is relatively homogeneous and restricts the competitive valuation of academics between institutions. The comparison shows that academic systems such as the U.S. which are characterized by a high level of heterogeneity typically present more negotiation opportunities for the valuation of academics. From a discursive perspective, institutional categories, therefore, can reflect the ways in which academics are valuated in the inter-institutional job market, by national bureaucracies or in professional oligarchies.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore structural and systemic influences in the development of competence models and qualifications systems at sectoral and national levels across Europe, considering the influences of different socio-economic models of skill formation on the processes of design and provision of qualifications. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a meta analysis of three European projects that used literature review, documentary analysis and interviews with practitioners and policy makers. Findings: The main methodological and practical challenges posed by varieties of competence and qualifications to inter-country comparability of qualifications are shown to be related to different socio-economic models of skill formation. Research limitations/implications: The research is limited to 13 countries and four sectors but these were carefully selected to maximise coverage of European diversity with respect to competence models, training regimes and approaches to qualifications. There is clearly a need for further research involving more countries and sectors. Practical implications: The paper offers recommendations for improving the potential of the European Qualifications Framework to promote comparability of qualifications and hence mobility of labour. These recommendations will be of interest to policy makers and practitioners involved in using the EQF and similar instruments. Originality/value: This is the first systematic attempt to explore the methodological and practical difficulties of establishing comparability between qualifications. (Contains 4 tables.)

This paper is a numerical exploration of the following. Assume, in the European Union context, that decision-makers want to spend more on higher education via higher tuition fees, but also want payments to be deferred and income-contingent. There are several possible ways to achieve this. First, ask graduates to repay a fixed amount each year if their current net income is above a certain threshold - income-contingent loans (ICL). Second, ask former students to repay a fixed proportion of their income - human capital contracts (HCC). What are the respective distributional properties of these policies, and how do they compare with traditional financing through income taxation? This paper shows that, irrespective of major variations between countries with different higher education, labor market and fiscal structures, with income taxation non-graduates pay more that 50% of the increased higher-education costs. It also shows that the HCC and ICL have vertical equity properties because non-graduates do not pay, but also because the income contingency principle on which they are based redistributes income among heterogeneous graduates. Finally, the paper shows that HCC are the best way to take account of graduates' ability to pay. It also reveals, however, that the ICL can be made to be almost as equitable. (Contains 4 figures, 7 tables, 27 notes, and 1 appendix.) [Research for this article was supported by a grant from the Belgian Federal Government.]

Although the current Labour government is committed to developing the UK as a high skills society, there is much confusion as what such a society might look like and from where it might draw its inspiration. Some academic commentators have also expressed the need for a clearer vision of the kind of society to which the UK might choose to head for under the banner of 'high skills'. In this paper, the authors discuss whether such a vision is needed and what, in their view, this vision might look like. The authors argue that Germany and Scandinavia offer the best 'actually existing' examples of high skill societies and consider whether the UK could move towards a northern European inspired high skills model. Having identified some of the obstacles currently blocking such a project, the paper discusses whether a vision is still needed and why academics must continue to debate what it means to build a high skills society in the UK.

In this paper, the authors seek to disentangle what they see as contradictory uses of the term "professionalisation" with reference to adult educator development and training (AEDT). They set out to distinguish "professionalisation" from "professionalism," and to identify the locus of control of AEDT in Germany, the UK and India. In these three countries, all of which have a long tradition of adult education, "professionalisation" and "professionalism" are used interchangeably to describe conflicting purposes. The authors aim to identify and critically explore the organisations and policies which control and support AEDT in their own countries using American sociologist Eliot Freidson's "third logic" model, and drawing on his juxtaposition of "professions," "the market" and "bureaucracy." Applying Freidson's models to the organisations highlights the role of bureaucracy and that where adult education is concerned, national governments, the European Union and aid organisations not only serve bureaucracy but also support the market rather than operating separately from it. While the term "professionalisation" continues to be used to mean professional development, either by adult educators and representative organisations (as in the UK) or by organisations acting on their behalf (as in Germany and India), it is also used to denote regulation and standardisation issuing from bureaucratic institutions and adult education provider organisations in the interests of the market. The authors suggest that Freidson's model provides a useful tool for adult educators in other countries to reflect on their professional position and to engage in the development of their own professional standards, both in their own interests and in the interests of those they educate.

An important driver of change in work, employment and skills is European Union policy aims of sustainable economic growth and the cultivation of a green economy. Part of the latter--which is supported by increasing environmental regulation--focuses on the development of a "green skills agenda," which involves the "greening" of existing occupations as well as meeting the skill needs of new environmental sectors and occupations. In this paper, we compare attempts to 'green' work and skills through an examination of engineering apprenticeships within the German and British steel industries. We argue that efforts to "green" skills are taking place at varying degrees of intensity, mostly because of variations in institutional context. The evidence we present suggests that implementation of change is much more dynamic in the context of Coordinated Market Economies such as Germany, where development is shaped by robust VET frameworks and wider processes of environmental innovation. In contrast, within Liberal Market Economies such as the UK, there are significant barriers to the vision for and investments in skills generally, as well as those necessary for greening the labour process, with an extant development paradigm that is driven by short-term benefits and a limited focus on environmental compliance.

The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of higher education and the graduate labour markets in selected European countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) in the context of the expectations of graduates and prospective employers, and respective recruitment and selection practices. Expectations of graduating students from a number of European collaborating universities are sought and analysed in order to find out about a match between the knowledge and skills of graduates and the needs of European employers. The study examines the process of graduate recruitment, employee and employer expectations, and the role of higher education institutions in meeting such expectations. Primary data was gathered from 252 employers and 485 final year (graduating) students through the use of questionnaires. The analysis of the data collected has revealed different approaches to but similar methods of graduate recruitment between the four countries. Despite the current differences in higher education systems and labour market trends, the expectations of employers and graduating students are more similar than different. It is concluded that EU graduates will have good employment prospects in an integrated labour market.

This paper develops a framework of the role of interpersonal interactions in the labor market. Effective interpersonal interactions involve caring and directness. The ability to perform these tasks varies with personality and the importance of these tasks varies across jobs. An assignment model shows that people are most productive in jobs that match their style. An oversupply of one attribute relative to the other reduces wages for people who are better with the attribute in greater supply. We present evidence that youth sociability affects job assignment in adulthood. The returns to interpersonal interactions are consistent with the assignment model. (Contains 9 figures, 9 footnotes and 13 tables.)

Labour market activation policies aimed at those with multiple barriers to employment require inter-agency collaboration between local organizations providing social and employment services. This local collaborative context is shaped by different institutional logics (state, markets, professions and community) that are crucial for policy implementation. Using case studies of nine German, UK and Swedish cities, it is argued that different institutional logics help shape the form and operation of local collaboration between different agencies and actors and thus the concrete support for service users at the local level. Although all three countries are characterized by centralized employment policies, each city shows a prevalence, but not exclusivity, of certain institutional logics over others. These differences, partly reflecting the local context, are likely to lead to local variations in understandings of solidarity, policy implementation, inter-agency collaboration and networks of actors and national–local tensions. The paper suggests that an institutional logics approach provides a useful framework for helping to understand local variations and potential national–local policy conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the transition from higher education to work in comparative perspective has attracted increasing attention from scholars and practitioners alike. Previous studies reveal similarities and differences in labour market outcomes across countries, but explanatory frameworks mainly refer to fields of study, whereas differences by types of institutions and types of degrees remain largely descriptive. Therefore, this paper specifically focuses on these institutional structures by arguing that the institutional stratification of higher education systems is crucial for shaping graduate employment prospects. More specifically, it is assumed that the higher the vertical differentiation of types of institutions or types of degrees, the stronger the differences of employment outcomes. This assumption is tested empirically by analysing two country cases most different in the institutional set-up of their higher education systems: Germany and Britain. By applying hazard models to the German Socio-Economic Panel and two British cohort studies (NCDS and BCS70), the paper shows that the vertical differentiation of British higher education institutions and degrees differentiates the transitions to the service class more strongly than in Germany. Thus, for understanding transition patterns from higher education to work in comparative perspective, it is necessary to take into account the institutional structure of higher education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Self-reported satisfaction measures respond to a great variety of socio-demographic characteristics as well as the job and living environment. In this paper we ask whether the recent financial market crisis has caused a deterioration of satisfaction not only for the unemployed but also for those out of the labour force and especially those in employment. The focus of our analyses is on the pattern of life, job and health satisfaction over time and the influence of unemployment rates, inflation rates and GDP growth. We compare the UK and Germany, two countries with different employment protection regulations and different consequences of the crisis for the labour market. For our analysis we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Study for the period 1996-2010 and supplement this with annual information on macroeconomic indicators. We estimate Ordered Logit and OLS models, both with individual fixed effects. We find some limited psychological costs with respect to self-reported life satisfaction in the crisis years, and a considerable impact of regional and national unemployment rates. Looking at job and health satisfaction we get similar though somewhat weaker results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have differently institutionalized welfare regimes dealt with the Covid-19 crisis? In particular, how have they confronted the social and economic inequalities exposed by the virus? Taking three European countries--Germany, Sweden, and the UK, corresponding broadly to conservative-continental, social democratic, and liberal regime types--this paper tracks the virus response in the areas of income and employment protection and health and residential care. With attention paid to issues of "capacity" and the institutional arrangements in each case, we find that institutional histories in Germany and Sweden permitted a certain recidivistic reliance on established practices in the areas of employment and social protection. In sum, certain social and economic inequalities were mitigated as these countries set aside recent trends toward "liberalization" and mobilized longer-standing institutional capacities to protect some groups, although by no means all. Evidence of this trend is less clear in the health and residential care sectors, where Germany had existing capacity, allowing its older population to weather the crisis in better order than its counterparts in Sweden and the UK. In the UK, welfare liberalization has led to increased social and economic inequalities and funding reductions in health and residential care--all of which have reduced the country's ability to deal with severe crisis. The Covid response in this case was agile, but also chaotic, with little being done to ameliorate the positions of the most vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT European labour markets have undergone several important innovations over the last three decades. Most countries have reformed their labour markets since the mid-1990s, with the liberalization of fixed-term contracts and temporary work agencies being the common elements to such reforms. This paper investigates the existence of a change in the dynamic behaviour of the aggregate employment for major European Union countries - France, Germany, Italy and Spain. According to our results, partial labour market reforms have made the response of the aggregate employment to output shocks larger and quite comparable to that found for the UK - the most flexible labour market in Europe since the Thatcher reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and the human-capital determinants of low-wage mobility for labour market entrants in the UK and Germany. Design/methodology/approach -- Using panel data for the UK (BHPS) and Germany (GSOEP), a competing-risks duration model is applied that allows the study of transitions from low pay to competing destination states: higher pay, self-employment, unemployment and inactivity. Unobserved heterogeneity is tackled by a non-parametric mass-point approach. Findings -- It is found that low pay is only a temporary state for most young job starters. However, there is a small group of job starters that is caught in a trap of low pay, unemployment or inactivity. In the UK, job starters escape from low pay mainly by developing firm-specific skills. In Germany, involvement in formal vocational training and the attainment of apprenticeship qualifications account for low pay exits. Originality/value -- Over the past decades, unemployment and low-wage employment have emerged as major challenges facing young labour market entrants. While most empirical studies focus exclusively on the transition from low pay to high pay, the paper shows that a significant percentage of young entrants are caught in a low-pay-non-employment trap. Moreover, it is shown that, depending on the institutional context, different types of human capital investments can account for a successful low-pay exit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How individual wages change with time is one of the crucial determinants of labour market decisions including the timing of retirement. The focus of this paper is the relationship between age and wages with special attention given to individuals nearing retirement. The analysis is presented in a comparative context for Britain and Germany looking at two longitudinal data sets (BHPS and SOEP, respectively) for the years 1995-2004. We show the importance of cohort effects and selection out of employment which determine the downward-sloping part of the 'inverse-U' profile observed in cross-sections. There is little evidence that wages fall with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the long-term effect of part-time employment on the wage career using panel data for three countries. The main idea is to study the possible 'scarring' effects of part-time employment on future hourly wages up to ten years later in the career. Fixed effects panel wage regressions show the existence of a part-time wage penalty for females in all three countries and for males in the UK. Longer durations of part-time result in stronger negative wage effects. In the UK, a negative effect of past part-time employment is also found to persist even after a lasting transition to a full-time job. The fact that the effect of part-time on wage is larger in the UK suggests that wage penalties, contrary to what could be expected, are smaller in regulated labour markets with a specific skills regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "big trade-off," described by Arthur Okun some thirty years ago, is back again: equality or efficiency, or to put it differently, modern highly developed economies and societies have to choose between the Scylla of income inequality and the Charybdis of unemployment. Furthermore, it looks like the continental European economies—foremost Germany and France—sided with more egalitarian ends accepting higher unemployment while the liberal economies such as the United States and the United Kingdom chose higher inequality for lower unemployment. In this paper it is argued that the trade-off is not a supply-side necessity to maintain work effort in a situation of incomplete contracts, but is a politico-economic issue of particular interest groups seeking rents. However, unlike in Mancur Olson's seminal approach, it is not the trade unions that are forming distributional coalitions on the labor market, but rather the meritocracy which is happy to use Keynesian-type demand management to advance their material interests by pursuing a "meritocratically optimal rate of unemployment" (MORU). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In general, the 'mega-trends' represented by, for example, globalisation, the shift to a service economy coupled with high levels of technological change and a long-term shrinkage in the working population all make a more adaptable and skilled workforce in high income countries necessary. The pervasive effects of these mega-trends are often interpreted as suggesting that there is only one optimal institutional configuration to achieve good employment outcomes, which therefore needs to be adopted by all countries. As Britain seems closer to this ideal type than Germany, one would expect a better labour market performance in the former than in the latter, as well as a convergence in labour market policies and outcomes in Germany towards the British model. Taking into account the different starting positions of Germany and Britain, particularly with regard to important differences in monetary policy contexts, the paper evaluates whether and to what extent national public policy patterns are actually converging towards a higher level of flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of economic crisis, many employers in liberal labor markets reduce their employees' working hours, which leads to an increase in the incidence of involuntary part-time work. We analyze the effectiveness of working time regulation in preventing such an increase during downswings. For this we look at the case of Germany, where hours adjustments are highly restricted by law. Using a state-level panel regression approach, we find that the incidence of involuntary part-time work is positively associated with the unemployment rate but that the association is much weaker than in the US and in the UK. Transition probabilities between employment states over the cycle suggest two particular underlying mechanisms: First, already employed workers are more likely to want a full-time position in economic downturns ("added hours effect"). Second, job seekers make concessions with regards to their desired hours when labor market conditions are bad ("reservation hours effect"). We are the first to document these margins of cyclical hours adjustments which are fundamentally different from those in less regulated labor markets, where the cyclicality of involuntary part-time work is predominantly driven by hours changes at the same employer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of rising migration uncertainty in four advanced economies (i.e. US, UK, Germany and France). Migration uncertainty is first captured by the Migration Policy Uncertainty (MPUI) and the Migration Fear (MFI) news‐based indexes developed by Baker et al. (Immigration fears and policy uncertainty, 2015), and then by a novel Google Trend Migration Uncertainty Index (GTMU) based on the frequency of Internet searches for the term 'immigration'. VAR investigations suggest that the macroeconomic implications of rising migration uncertainty differ across countries. Moreover, news‐based and Google search‐based migration fear shocks generate different macroeconomic effects. For instance, in the US (France), MPUI, MFI and GTMU shocks all improve (undermine) production and labour market conditions in the medium run. For Germany and the UK, mixed evidence is found, suggesting that increasing media attention on migration phenomena and rising population's interest in migration‐related issues influence people's mood differently. The observed heterogeneity in the macroeconomic effects of rising migration uncertainty can be explained by cross‐country gaps in (a) the level of labour market rigidity, (b) the degree of people's happiness and life satisfaction and (c) the percentage of graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses panel data from the UK and Germany to investigate the difference in the learning effect between workers who enter the labour market with a fixed term and a permanent job. Our results verify the existence of a wage penalty for entering the labour market with a fixed-term contract for the British males (7.1%) and especially for the British females (21.2%). British females also have a very strong learning effect that is especially large for temporary starters. In Germany, the initial wage penalty for temporary starters is smaller than in the UK—4.5% for the males and 3% for the females—and is persistent only for the males. Although initial wage differences are mitigated through the accumulation of skills on the job, this process differs between temporary and permanent starters. This suggests that the type of the starting contract may be a feature of labour market segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article studies the development of social services in Britain, France and Germany since the 1980s. In this period services grew strongly and were extended to large population groups, although the welfare state was in crisis. Moreover, the power of the state was enhanced. The share of public service provision declined somewhat, but this was more than balanced by increased public funding and intensified state control of delivery. The paper argues that the rise of social services does not signal a 'new' welfare state. Rather, the belated expansion of social services compared to other areas is explained by the fact that services have become crucial for the economy and the labour market only recently. Since this was the case, they have followed the classical path of welfare state expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment rates are insufficient indicators of the level of economic activity because they say little about the scale of non-employment in a given working-age population. Empirical research has started to recognize this and policy debates increasingly concentrate on working-age inactivity as a relevant gauge of the state of labour markets (OECD, 2003). However, the causes for transitions between employment and different states of non-employment are not well understood. Why do levels of working-age inactivity sometimes vary significantly across countries and over time? Apart from stages in the business cycle, welfare-state institutions and benefit designs can be assumed to influence movements into and out of labour markets and between different states of non-employment. This paper investigates the impact of changes in welfare-state institutions in the UK and Germany. Analyses of longitudinal data show that economic conditions, as well as policy changes, have had significant effects on transitions between labour activity and inactivity among working-age men during the 1990s. In particular, the findings suggest that shifts to more means-tested benefit arrangements can have unintended consequences, in terms of increasing levels of labour-market detachment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the impact of temporary work on two dimensions of social inequality: income and career mobility. Additionally, we are taking a comparative perspective on this subject by comparing Germany and the UK. To investigate the effects of temporary work we use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Study on non-self-employed respondents. The results show that temporary work does influence the system of social inequality: we found wage penalties and an increased probability of severe negative effects on the working careers of temporarily employed persons in both countries (net of education, age, and a variety of other covariates). Thus we can conclude that temporary employment represents a substantial socio-economic risk for employees. Most importantly, this holds true for both the German and the British case, two quite distinct labour market regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides novel evidence on trends in job stability in the United Kingdom and Germany, two capitalist economies with distinct sets of institutions and labour market reform trajectories. While we find evidence of an increase in short‐term jobs for men in both countries, we also find important differences in the overall patterns of change in the distribution of job tenure duration. The United Kingdom follows a masked instability pattern with opposite job stability trends for men and women. On the other hand, we find evidence of a polarization of the job tenure distribution among men and women in Germany. These findings are partly consistent with expectations from the dualization literature, emphasizing a growing segmentation of the labour market between insiders and outsiders. More generally, this study highlights the existence of multiple paths towards increased job instability that appear to be rooted in institutional differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports results of an empirical study on the effectiveness of labour market policy. Data from Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and the United States are used to apply a simultaneous equation model with wages and employment being the endogenous variables. In order to explain employment, the amount of unemployment benefits per unemployed (passive labour market policy) and payment for wage subsidies and training per employed and unemployed person (active labour market policy) are used in addition to real wages and output. Wages and output have their expected impact on total employment. It turns out that passive labour market policy has a negative, and active labour market measures a positive, effect on the number of persons employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the international origins of the neo-welfare state in Britain during the era of globalization before World War I. We introduce a new mechanism linking trade to the expansion of the state. In addition to increasing assessments of the volatility of employment in a market economy, trade shocks changed beliefs about the deservingness of the poor. Employing a shift-share measure of local exposure to German imports, we show that rising imports caused worse labor market outcomes from 1880 to 1910. Import competition led to a decrease in support for the Conservative Party in national elections after 1900, when the Liberal Party supported welfare state reforms. We further show that rising imports increased the use in local newspapers of scientific terms like "unemployment" relative to pejorative terms like "vagrancy" to describe the poor. Political responses to globalization helped shape voter support for the modern British welfare state at its inception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines over-time trends in intergenerational class mobility based on cohorts of labour market entrants in Germany and the UK since the 1950s. We calculate absolute and relative mobility rates, separately for men and women, using the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984–2016), the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009–2016), and the UK Labour Force Survey (2014–2017). Regarding absolute mobility, we find marked country differences in upward and downward rates. In Germany, downward mobility decreased, while upward mobility rose. In the UK, downward mobility increased, while upward mobility declined. We provide evidence that these differences can be linked to contrasting changes in the distribution of origin and destination classes. Regarding relative mobility, striking country similarities appear. For both countries, we observe increases in social fluidity for respondents entering the labour market during the 1950s and 1960s that cease to continue for cohorts thereafter. Comparisons between adjacent cohorts do not provide evidence that social fluidity follows cyclical developments of the economy or shorter-term volatilities in the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the macroeconomic consequences of the diversion of migration flows away from Germany towards the UK in the course of the EU''s Eastern Enlargement. The EU has agreed transitional periods for the free movement of workers with the new member states from Central and Eastern Europe. The selective application of migration restrictions during the transitional periods has resulted in a reversal of the pre-enlargement allocation of migration flows from the new member states across the EU. Based on a forecast of the migration potential under the conditions of free movement and of the transitional arrangements, we employ a CGE model with imperfect labour markets to analyse the macroeconomic effects of this diversion process. We find that EU Eastern enlargement has increased in the GDP per capita in the UK substantially, but that the diversion of migration flows towards the UK has reduced wage gains and the decline in unemployment there. The effects of the EU Eastern enlargement are less favourable for Germany, but the diversion of migration flows has protected workers there against a detrimental impact on wages and unemployment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Contrasting the conservative German welfare state with the liberal market economy of the United Kingdom, this paper examines how each welfare regime affects the first-birth decisions of men and women under the conditions of either high labour market integration (full-time work in a permanent position) or occupational uncertainty (part-time work or work with a fixed-term contract). The results, which are based on BHPS and GSOEP data, suggest for Germany that occupational uncertainty hampers transitions to parenthood, but are inconclusive for the UK. Among highly educated women in both Germany and the UK, however, a high degree of labour market integration is found to delay family formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comparative study of the labour market and social policy measures introduced in light of the COVID-19 crisis in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom between March 2020 and January 2021. Its main aim is to understand whether the crisis response has changed the structures of the welfare states concerned. Focusing in particular on the differences regarding the crisis measures taken for individuals in 'standard employment' and 'non-standard workers' in each country, it argues that, although extensive temporary protection instruments were introduced for both groups during the crisis, these did not lead to an immediate convergence as regards these groups' social protection. Rather than changing the underlying structures of welfare systems, many of the measures in fact highlighted the specific vulnerabilities of large segments of Europe's labour markets. States have, however, granted social compensation at unprecedented levels, which could result in improved infrastructures and a clearer understanding of the responsibility of the welfare state in future emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we define and estimate measures of labor market frictions using data on job durations. We compare different estimation methods and different types of data. We propose and apply an unconditional inference method that can be applied to aggregate duration data. It does not require wage data, it is invariant to the way in which wages are determined, and it allows workers to care about other job characteristics. The empirical analysis focuses on France, but we perform separate analyses for the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands. We quantify the monopsony power due to search frictions and we examine the policy effects of the minimum wage, unemployment benefits, and search frictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether the supply side characteristics of the low paid are associated with the labour market wage setting institutions of five countries; Britain, Luxembourg, Germany, Spain and the USA, using the harmonised PAnel Comparability (PACO) data based on household panel studies and the Spanish European Household Panel survey. The age, education, marital status, children, lone parent status, household type, employment status of spouse, and housing tenure of the low paid are examined. The links between these characteristics, the low paid and labour market institutions are examined through multi- variate analyses. Labour market wage setting institutions clearly influence the characteristics of the low paid and explain the variations in supply side, as well as demand side characteristics across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study advances the analysis of cognitive skill use at work by considering another crucial factor: the motivation-to-learn (MtL). Previous research has indicated that MtL forms cognitive skills in the school setting. However, the role of MtL in the work setting is much less understood. The present study analyses the association between MtL and cognitive skill use in three major European labour markets: Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, using the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). Findings from a regression analysis of cognitive skill use on MtL and various control variables show that the independent contribution of MtL is about as important as the combined contribution of literacy/numeracy proficiency, although a decomposition analysis reveals further insights about how MtL, literacy/numeracy proficiency, and education intersect each other in the determination of cognitive skill use. The found association is remarkably stable across different samples and model specifications. Some heterogeneities are however revealed, such as a larger relative importance of MtL among the low-educated in the Netherlands. The findings are interpreted in light of contemporary theory on institutional regimes, concentrating on cross-country differences in on-the-job training prevalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German labour market policy regime constitutes a reliable supporting pillar of the highly productive German employment system. Due to the most recent reforms, its core principle of status protection – a basic norm of the German middle-class-related model of social protection for the population of working age – is losing its formative character. Our analysis focuses on three separate policy principles that form the guiding logic of status centredness, namely the equivalence in security provision, the mechanisms that protect the socio-economic status in the event of unemployment, and the tripartite mode of funding. We argue that the ‘Hartz Reforms’ have reinforced the logic of the legal modifications since the mid-1990s, cumulating now in a shift away from the middle-class-oriented status-centred approach of social security provision. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The literature addressing attitudes about social policy and the welfare state has been telling us for decades that welfare interventions are supported by those individuals who benefit from a specific measure. The diffusion of ‘demanding’ active labour market policies (ALMPs), however, challenges this relationship. Using a novel dataset, I analyse which individual- and country-level factors explain public support for demanding ALMPs in five Western European countries. The results show that labour market risk and ideological orientation influence public attitudes towards these ALMPs. Thereby, unemployed individuals sympathising with the political right are more strongly opposed to demanding measures than employed individuals with the same political preferences. Moreover, aggregate support is found to be correlated with the country's ALMP legacy, varying from high levels in Germany and the UK to low levels in Denmark and France. The findings suggest that most ALMPs are in fact implemented despite the opposition of their beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the impact of social origin on tertiary graduates' labour market outcomes in Germany and the United Kingdom, two distinct countries in terms of higher education systems, labour market structures, and their linkages. Data from the 2005 REFLEX survey, OLS regression and linear probability models are used to analyse the effect of parental education on graduates' occupational destinations at two time points: at labour market entry and five years after graduation. We test various hypotheses on country variation (i) in the strength of association between origin and occupational destinations, (ii) in the mechanisms by which social origin affects occupational destinations (i.e. via qualitative education differences), and (iii) in the extent to which social origin matters at different career stages. The results show that parental education effects are similar in the two countries when occupational destinations are analysed using the International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI). They substantially differ when the analyses focus on entry into the higherservice class. In this latter case, both the gross and the net effects of parental education are stronger in the United Kingdom than in Germany. However, country differences in parental education effects reduce when graduates' occupational outcomes are analysed 5 years after graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rent-based accounts of inequality argue that institutionalized barriers to the access to labour market positions create artificial restrictions on the supply of labour and, in turn, generate wages for workers in protected positions in excess of the wages they would receive in a competitive labour market. In this article, we extend this argument to the comparative context, and elaborate a rent-based explanation of between-occupation wage inequality in Germany and the United Kingdom. We test it with new and unique data on four institutionalized sources of closure (educational credentialing, licensure, unionization, and apprenticeships), matched to newly constructed measures of occupational skills and to national labour force survey data. We show that in both countries, between-occupation wage inequality is substantial, and much of it can be traced to variations across occupations in closure and to the positive association between closure and wages. We also show that the prevalence and the payoff to each of the four closure institutions differ across the two countries: Specifically, vocational credentialing and unionization have a particularly high payoff in Germany, while tertiary credentialing and licensure have a particularly high payoff in the United Kingdom. These results have important implications for understanding between-occupation wage inequality and cross-national differences in aggregate levels of wage inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of the European countries have experienced a turn towards activation policies during the last two decades ( Serrano Pascual and Magnusson 2007; van Berkel and Borghi 2008; Bonoli 2010; Aurich 2011; Graziano 2009 and 2012). The interlinked aim to increase employment rates by integrating formerly excluded groups into the labour market requires new forms of governance and new structures of policy implementation. One of these policy changes concerns the marketization of employment and social services ( Considine 2001; Newman 2001), an important part of policy delivery in most welfare states although in very different forms and extents. Since the local level plays a crucial role in delivering policies ( Künzel 2012; Green and Orton 2012), an important element, and the main focus of the article, is the level of discretion of local actors and their relation to activation interventions. This article draws on the findings of three qualitative case studies on the organization of activation policies in three most different countries regarding worlds of welfare: Germany, Italy and the UK. It develops a theoretical framework of regulating marketization in regard to activation, and analyses the three empirical cases according to it. The findings show a link between the regulation of market-based interventions (i.e. type of marketization, outsourcing decisions and purchaser-provider split) and the level of discretion for local actors with regard to these measures. Local contexts of policy-making and their suitability and willingness to become marketized will affect the usage of local discretion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates differences in the likelihood of becoming an insider in Germany and the United Kingdom. Consistent with recent literature on dualization it contends that insider protection is more pronounced in the corporatist system and conservative welfare state of Germany. In conjunction with micro-level labour market sociology, the study argues that this affects the job matching process of the labour market. Using individual level panel data in event history models, it contrasts leaving non-employment for an insider position, that is, permanent full-time employment, with staying on the outside of the core labour market, that is, remaining without employment or taking up an atypical job. Results demonstrate that insider positions are harder to attain in the German labour market as a consequence of the institutional context that makes the said posts so appealing in the first place. At the same time, the German labour market regime strengthens the mechanisms of selection in terms of gender, age and education. The insider/outsider divide thus works in two ways. First, it increases inequality between insiders and outsiders in terms of economic and positional stability. Second, a stronger divide interacts with micro-level matching processes on the labour market. By reinforcing social differences in the chance to obtain an insider position, inequality is thus even further pronounced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the skills of employability in Germany and Great Britain. It mentions that such condition is considered the principle in driving the labour market throughout Europe for 20 years and conceived as a strategy in battling unemployment. It also explores the national embedding of its concept, its association with competence and the role of a person towards its realization.

While many previous studies on temporary work have found disadvantages for temporary workers compared to workers with a permanent contract, this study makes the comparison to the alternative of unemployment. Applying a dynamic propensity-score matching approach based on British, German, and Swiss panel data, it is shown that taking up a temporary job increases the employment chances during the subsequent five years in Germany and the United Kingdom. Moreover, the chances of having a permanent contract remain higher and a persistent wage premium can be found. In contrast, no long-run advantages can be found in the case of the flexible Swiss labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Family policies have been expanded in many OECD countries, whilst developments along other welfare state dimensions have been characterized by retrenchment. Although the contribution of gender analyses of the welfare state to a better understanding of family policies is widely acknowledged, the literature so far has largely failed to provide a comparative account explaining the recent expansions of employment-oriented family policies in countries that were previously categorized as pursuing policies in accordance with the strong male breadwinner model. This article aims to make a contribution to the comparative literature by investigating the socioeconomic conditions and politics of employment-oriented family policy expansions in Britain and Germany since the 1990s. We pay special attention to processes of post-industrialisation and especially changed skill compositions as well as the role of key policy actors, with a special focus on organized business. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Sozialer Fortschritt is the property of Duncker & Humblot GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A central concern about immigration is the integration into the labour market, not only of the first generation but also of subsequent generations. Little comparative work exists for Europe's largest economies. France, Germany and the UK have all become, perhaps unwittingly, countries with large immigrant populations albeit with very different ethnic compositions. Today, the descendants of these immigrants live and work in their parents’ destination countries. This article presents and discusses comparative evidence on the performance of first and second-generation immigrants in these countries in terms of education, earnings and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the results of transition studies in the UK, Germany, USA and Canada, the virtues of analysing the structural contexts, institutional arrangements and the young peoples' action orientations are presented. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, school and the labour market have become more and more decoupled and transition routes more uncertain. From a structural perspective, the sorting of school leavers into different transition pathways according to their educational achievements contributes to the reproduction of social inequality. From the actor' perspective, transition uncertainty requires that young adults develop agency (planful and adaptive competence) in order to manage meaningful decisions between alternative pathways to employment. By relating the concept of agency to intuitive rationality and biographical choice, various action strategies are presented that document how young people from different social origins actively pursue individual goals when choosing to follow or to change transition pathways. In contrast to an emphatic reading of the individualisation thesis, comparative transition studies show that only socially privileged and educationally successful youths succeed in transforming their agency into self-reflexive projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]